{"id":4058,"date":"2021-06-28T17:32:49","date_gmt":"2021-06-28T22:32:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lesleyelis.com\/elisblog\/?p=4058"},"modified":"2021-06-28T17:32:49","modified_gmt":"2021-06-28T22:32:49","slug":"april-faculty-community-conversation-incorporating-dei-into-your-course-content","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lesleyelis.com\/elisblog\/2021\/06\/28\/april-faculty-community-conversation-incorporating-dei-into-your-course-content\/","title":{"rendered":"April Faculty Community Conversation: Incorporating DEI Into Your Course Content"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are many benefits to incorporating DEI into our course designs. Creating an inclusive environment allows us to connect and reach a wide range of students. Incorporating DEI motivates students and supports a positive educational experience with multiple perspectives and backgrounds. In April\u2019s Community Conversation, Lesley faculty Maureen Creegan Quinquis<\/a> and Aya Karpinska<\/a> joined Kay Martinez, Director of DEI Training, Education, & Development, to share strategies, reflections, and their ongoing journey to make more intentional and informed choices with their course content and activities.<\/p>\n

Maureen began our conversation by sharing her course, \u201cEquity, Access, and Inclusion through Arts Based Inquiry\u201d for K12 classroom teachers. In the first class assignment, she shares a single photo of herself and asks students to list assumptions about her gender, ethnicity, personality, physical abilities, etc. One cohort assumed she was Italian after the first meeting because she gestures a lot with her hands. Their answers then lead to a discussion and activities around misconceptions we make based solely on visual information and how assumptions are created. \u201cAre they an inside job or culturally created?\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of Maureen\u2019s students also use Mursion<\/a>, a virtual reality tool that allows student teachers opportunities to practice classroom scenarios including how to deal with bullying and microaggressions. Students using the tool encounter a diverse group of middle school student avatars in realistic situations that don\u2019t have a script. Students can practice specific scenarios and learn to confront biases in a low-stakes environment before stepping into a real classroom.<\/p>\n

Aya has taken an iterative approach to teaching her History of Interface course and providing a more diverse view of technology. Many technology interfaces and programming languages have been created by white, western men and most of them in English. This creates a bias and an impact on how technology is created and used. Since many of the texts shared in her course are also by white European\/Western men, Aya has been going back and asking herself why she selected this source. Is there another text that could be used instead to bring a different perspective? Are there other modalities of learning that can be used such as a graphic novel about Ada Lovelace<\/a>, the originator of the algorithm.<\/p>\n

Aya\u2019s course has a module on the history of textiles asking the question \u201cHow do we define technology?\u201d In it she looks at sewing, the spinning jenny<\/a>, and knitting. Some programmers say that knitting is a turing complete<\/a> process and that the definition of knitting is similar to the definition of a computer. She shares the role of the seamstresses who created the space suits for the astronauts who went to the moon highlighting the untold stories of the women, people of color, and the disabled individuals behind the scenes.<\/p>\n

Kay discussed the shift from DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion, to EDIJ, equity, diversity, inclusion, and justice, leading with equity and adding justice to the conversation. It\u2019s an important change that reflects the values and our framework as an institution. To illustrate the difference between equality and equity, Kay shared this bicycle image, in the top half everyone has a bike, but it\u2019s not designed for each person\u2019s needs. In the bottom half of the image, each person has a bike that has been adjusted to the needs of the individual.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

Kay then asked the question \u201cHow does the curriculum reflect the students in your classes?\u201d As a queer, trans person of color, Kay never saw themselves in the courses they took or in their higher education experience at large. Students look at Kay as a \u201cunicorn\u201d where they didn\u2019t know people like them existed in higher ed.<\/p>\n

Kay suggested creating a shared community agreement with your class. Begin by saying that this is a share learning space. It is not top down, but a circle. I will learn from you, my students, as you learn from me. Use the one mic rule, one speaker at a time, to mitigate disruptions and provide support for those who get interrupted. Acknowledge the relationship between intention and impact. This means assuming positive intentions, but<\/em> you must still address the impact that the statements had on the class. Use the word \u201couch\u201d as a way for students to indicate that that statement hurt and \u201coops\u201d to say that it wasn\u2019t intentional.<\/p>\n

Our panelists all agree that while this is important work, it\u2019s not always easy. As Aya stated, be \u201cforgiving of my ignorance\u201d and be iterative with your course design. You won\u2019t get everything right all the time but providing a more diverse and multifaceted perspective in your course will be hugely beneficial to all of us.<\/p>\n

Resources<\/strong><\/h1>\n

The EDIJ Training site<\/a> has lots of training materials and information including Kay\u2019s presentation for this conversation.<\/p>\n

Check out the Lesley Library\u2019s Lib guides<\/a>. There are multiple guides for DEI<\/a>, but Including Underrepresented Perspectives in Your Course<\/a> may be a good place to start.<\/p>\n

Ensure your resources are fully accessible to all your students. Ally is integrated into all your myLesley courses and review your uploaded documents for potential issues and provide guidance on how to fix them. Learn more about Blackboard Ally<\/a> and review the Accessibility Checklist<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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There are many benefits to incorporating DEI into our course designs. Creating an inclusive environment allows us to connect and reach a wide range of students. Incorporating DEI motivates students and supports a positive educational experience with multiple perspectives and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[391,15],"tags":[416,415,355,392,356,235],"class_list":["post-4058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faculty-spotlight","category-lesley","tag-course-design","tag-dei","tag-diversity","tag-faculty-spotlight","tag-inclusion","tag-teaching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lesleyelis.com\/elisblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lesleyelis.com\/elisblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lesleyelis.com\/elisblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lesleyelis.com\/elisblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lesleyelis.com\/elisblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4058"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lesleyelis.com\/elisblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4058\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4060,"href":"https:\/\/www.lesleyelis.com\/elisblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4058\/revisions\/4060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lesleyelis.com\/elisblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lesleyelis.com\/elisblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lesleyelis.com\/elisblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}